2018-02-12 Server Update v0.9.13

Today’s server update has been successful. Downtime was less than 15min.

The wait-1-day-to-play-or-link-to-steam limitation for new players has been removed

The improved one-account-per-machine system (a.k.a. UID system, a.k.a. smurf check) has been improved

I’d like to give you some background information since most people probably aren’t aware of what we’re fighting. There have been certain users who had fun performing the following steps:

Create a new FAF account

Circumvent the UID system so you can log in with that account

Ruin other player’s games either by smurfing or by actively manipulating the lobby

Get banned

Repeat

We’re not sure why this would be any person’s hobby but apparently, it is.

While it’s impossible for us to implement a system that can’t be circumvented (unless we want to verify each player in person), we will continue to improve it as long as there are people who find joy in ruining other people’s games.

The new system will immediately ban accounts on login when it thinks the player is trying to circumvent it. In case of a false positive, the player can contact a moderator who will then verify the player manually.

It makes me really sad that we, the developers, need to waste so much time to implement such counter-measures. Think of all the improvements to FAF we could do instead.

If you’re one of those “hackers”, please reconsider the kind of person you want to be.